The Mersey Girls Read Online Free PDF

castle.’
    ‘Cor,’ Roddy said again, suitably impressed. ‘My mam said little Evie come on the stage wi’ a white, floaty gown you could see right through, she said there weren’t nothing left to . . .’
    ‘Oh well, you have to do all sorts of things if you want to be a star,’ Linnet said. Her cheeks felt hot and she wished – not for the first time – that she hadn’t started boasting. Not everyone understood that Mammy, who was so strict at home, sometimes had to do things which weren’t quite . . . quite nice. ‘Mammy sings lovely, too. She sings to me when she puts me to bed.’
    ‘Puts you . . . how old are you, Linnie?’ Roddy said. ‘You looks about twelve, same’s me.’
    ‘I’m eleven,’ Linnet told him. ‘Eleven years and ten days, ’cos I was born on New Year’s Day. Why?’
    ‘Well, me mam puts the baby an’ Freddy to bed, an’ me brother Matt gives little Bert an ‘and, but the rest of us gets ourselves there, some’ow,’ Roddy said. ‘Can’t you git to your buttons, eh?’
    ‘I only meant that I get into bed and then Mam comes along an’ tucks me in,’ Linnet explained hastily. ‘Then she sits on the side of my bed and sings a song or tells me stories about the old days in Ireland. That’s what I meant, I didn’t mean she undressed me or put my nightgown on – I do that for myself, of course.’
    ‘You’re a right ’un. A nightgown!’ Roddy said. ‘What’s wrong wi’ your shirt, or knickers or whatever gals wear?’
    ‘Well, you see . . . but let’s not talk about it, it’s just Mammy’s ways are different,’ Linnet said. She could just imagine how involved the conversation would become if they started talking about the dangers of catching fleas or lice if you wore the same garments day and night for a week. ‘You’ve got quite a lot of brothers and sisters, haven’t you? There’s only me and Mam in our rooms.’
    ‘What about your da?’ Roddy said. Linnet tried not to glower at him. She was already realising that Roddy would always pick on the difficult subjects, ask the awkward questions, unless he was carefully guided away from them.
    ‘My da’s back in Ireland,’ Linnet told him, mentally crossing her fingers though not doing so in fact, since he would undoubtedly notice. ‘Mam left him there. He – he wasn’t the sort of man she wanted to live with, you see.’
    Roddy nodded knowingly. ‘Aye, I know what you mean. Me mam’s sister, Auntie Prue, she lives not far from Peely. She’s got two brats, Simmy an’ Sukey. She din’t like either one o’ the fellers she went with, she told me mam so.’
    ‘Well, there you are then,’ Linnet said bracingly, thanking God for Prue and her brats. ‘Tell you what, Roddy, it’ll be dark quite soon. If you come home wi’ me, Mammy’ll give us buttered toast an’ fruit cake. We could play Snap, or Beggar your Neighbour if you’d like to.’
    ‘But she don’t know me,’ Roddy said doubtfully. ‘She won’t want a kid she don’t know in her place.’
    ‘Yes she will, she likes me to have friends,’ Linnet said.
    The remark was not strictly truthful but Linnet had noticed lately that Mammy, who at one time had frequently told her to steer clear of what she called ‘street kids’ and had made it plain that she did not want Linnet to bring school friends home, was beginning to change her tune. A year ago, when Linnet was nine, she had decided that her daughter was now old enough to have friends back to their rooms or to visit their homes, when she was invited. And on Linnet’s tenth birthday, when Mammy had come, pale-faced and heavy-eyed, into the living room, complaining bitterly that she had a champagne headache, she had reminded Linnet that she still had not brought any friends home, nor visited her classmates.
    ‘You’re old enough to find your own friends now,’ she had said, accepting the cup of tea her daughter had poured her and using both hands to lift it to her mouth. ‘Dear God,